


The Sorcerer (the What's Behind and What's Before remix)

by aconite (aconite_fic)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Magic Revealed, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 20:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6535570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aconite_fic/pseuds/aconite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small addition to "Set in stone" by EachPeachPearPlum.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sorcerer (the What's Behind and What's Before remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EachPeachPearPlum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EachPeachPearPlum/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Set in Stone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3552056) by [EachPeachPearPlum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EachPeachPearPlum/pseuds/EachPeachPearPlum). 



> This fic picks up right where Set in Stone ends. **Please read the original first** to avoid any spoilers for it! 
> 
> Thank you so, so much for your story, EachPeachPearPlum! I loved it very much, and I was very close to screaming when I finished reading it. I just _had_ to know what happens next, so this is my own version of it. I really hope you enjoy it!

"Arthur?"

Merlin’s voice is barely above a whisper. He fears that anything louder would break something between them, that he already _has_ broken it with the confession he’s just made. The years of trust and love and friendship, of fear and lying, they all weigh on his shoulders and he struggles not to crumple underneath them.

Arthur doesn’t reply. He rises slowly and his chair drags across the floor, slow and maddening. He stares at Merlin quietly until he turns around and walks towards the window.

"Arthur?" Merlin calls again, but Arthur just raises a hand without looking at him. He clasps his hands behind his back, and Merlin waits.

Merlin looks down at his palm and the light that helped him made his revelation. It fades out when he turns his hand over and sets it on the table to stop it from shaking. He leans back in his chair and tries to control his breathing as his gaze moves to Arthur. _At least he trusts me enough to stand with his back to me_ , Merlin thinks, but it does nothing to settle his nerves. Arthur’s frame tells him nothing, the way his eyes were empty of emotion before he got up tells him nothing, the heavy silence tells him nothing.

Merlin wonders if, like him, Arthur is contemplating the idea to climb out of the window he’s looking out from, to run away; start a new life where none of what’s happening in the kingdom would be his responsibility. It amuses Merlin to imagine Arthur cling onto the windowpane as he turns around to bid him one last farewell: his cloak is blowing in the wind, the sun is shining behind him, and his face is resolute. Alas, the sun is close to setting now, there is no wind to speak of, and Arthur’s shoulders are bare of his cloak in the privacy of his chambers. He's so still he might as well be made of stone, and Merlin’s throat turns out to be too tight for him to manage a laugh.

They’re quiet for what seems like a century. Still, Merlin is unprepared when Arthur finally sighs and turns around.

X

Arthur walks back to his chair and grips the back of it the way he hadn't let himself hold on to the windowpane. He tries to make the gesture look like it isn't him just masking the way his hands are shaking. He feels like he's floating, has been for the past few moments. His heart is beating in his chest, full of feelings he cannot quite express, and he struggles to maintain his composure, because he's the King, and Merlin...

Merlin. The sorcerer that failed to save his father. _The closest thing to a god any living man can hope to meet_ , Mordred had called him. His Merlin. _Your sorcerer._

Arthur sits down and looks at his friend. It hasn’t been long since this meeting started, but it seems to have drained years of Merlin’s life. His eyes are filled to the brim with remorse and desperation beyond appropriate for his youthful features.

"Do it again," Arthur says, then clears his throat when he hears the roughness of his voice. Merlin raises his eyebrows, but Arthur doesn’t have a joke to spare about how absent-minded his servant is—questions if Merlin really was as scatterbrained as he’d let Arthur believe—and lifts his hand to his chest, palm up, mimics what Merlin had done earlier.

Merlin’s eyes widen and he looks so unsure, so afraid, Arthur wants both to comfort him and to scream. Before he can do any of that, Merlin raises his hand and his eyes flash golden. The light blooms in his palm. Betrayal strikes Arthur’s heart like a dagger, and so does hurt, and sadness, and shame. Deep inside, he feels he should have known; he should have been able to figure it out, Merlin should have been able to tell him—but no. He's been a fool to allow this to be hidden from him, but he'll be a bigger one if he pretends not to understand why, not to understand the urgency in Merlin’s eyes, his clenched jaw, his short breaths.

Merlin is terrified. And this is far from the first time he's felt like this.

Arthur looks away from his face, focuses on the light instead. It adds a curious warmth to the mess of feelings in his chest, one he feels often when he remembers his games with Morgana, or his first practices with Leon, or his father telling him his stories. Arthur rubs his cheek and covers his mouth briefly in order to hide a little smile.

"The Mortaeus flower," Arthur says, and Merlin nods. It was so, so long ago when this same light guided Arthur out of the caves of Balor. He never knew who was looking over him then, but it makes sense it would be Merlin. There is no man in Camelot that has sacrificed more for Arthur than the man most know only as his manservant.

Arthur sighs and rubs his eyes, cards his hands through his hair.

"What are you doing here, Merlin?" he asks finally, voice trembling and tired.

Merlin frowns and pulls back a little. "I didn't realise you had dismissed me, sire."

"No." Arthur shakes his head. "This isn't what I meant." He takes a deep breath. "What are you doing here, in Camelot? My father could have—I could have—killed you. So many times. Why put yourself through this? Why not run away?"

Merlin’s features soften and with a shrug he says, "It's my destiny." He sees Arthur’s confusion and continues: "Not in the way Mordred explained it. I'm not a god. I _was_ born with it"—his voice catches at those words—"but I hadn’t heard the legend he's been raised believing until last week. He was the first to call me Emrys when we met years ago. I... I came here not to be a burden to my mother. She and Gaius were the only family I had. I thought so, at least."

"What do you mean?" Arthur asks. Merlin flinches, clearly regretting the admission. The light disappears and he lets his hands rest on the table in front of him.

"Do you remember the Dragonlord?"

Arthur nods. "Balinor," he says, and almost immediately feels dread fill his heart because he knows what Merlin’s next words will be.

"He was my father." Merlin looks down with a sad smile. "I hadn’t met him before that day." He swallows, then shakes his head. "I knew nothing about you before I got here. And let me tell you, when I _did_ meet you I didn’t want to believe I was meant to protect you.” He chuckles. “But later on... it became easier to understand why it was my destiny.”

Arthur huffs. "Was all the floor scrubbing of any help?" Merlin rolls his eyes, and Arthur doesn’t say anything, but he's glad Merlin is relaxed enough to display his usual amount of disrespect for Arthur’s authority.

"It was certainly very humbling." Merlin nods, serious for all of a moment before a grin breaks out on his face. Arthur thinks back on Mordred's words again. He shakes his head, unable to comprehend how all that power, all of Emrys can be contained in just one man, and _Merlin_ of all men. He doesn’t say anything for a while and Merlin’s face becomes serious again.

"Who knows?" Arthur asks him before Merlin has the chance to speak. "Obviously, Mordred does," he says and there's a little part of him that wants to be jealous, irrational as it is.

Merlin hesitates, but then he nods. "My mother knows. Will did. Lancelot did," he says, and this time Arthur isn't fast enough to stifle the pang of jealousy. "A lot of people who aren't here to tell the story."

Arthur ignores the implications those words have. "Gaius knows, too."

"He does," Merlin confirms, clearly unhappy. "He only wanted to protect me, and you by extension. Do what’s best for the kingdom. He always has."

"What _is_ best for the kingdom?" Arthur asks him, asks himself for the hundredth time. Lying? Killing? Making sacrifices that aren't yours to make? Hoping to build a brighter future for those who survived everything you had them endure?

Arthur sighs. "You need to tell me everything, Merlin."

Merlin takes a breath and nods. "Would you like me to bring us some dinner, first?"

Arthur raises a hand to dismiss him and Merlin shoots out of his spot, but before he can exit the chambers Arthur calls out after him. "Merlin?"

"Yes, my lord?"

Arthur ignores the absurdity of Merlin acting as if he's Arthur’s lesser and asks the question that's been lingering at the back of his mind. "If Balinor was the last Dragonlord and you're his son... does that mean that _you're_ the last one, now?"

Merlin shrugs and with a completely neutral tone says, "That we know of, yeah."

He takes a moment to enjoy the astonished look on Arthur’s face, then gives him a brilliant grin and quickly walks out the door.


End file.
